Friday, November 24, 2006

There are a number of things that worry me about this article. It is about the recent suicide bombing attempt by a 64 year-old grandmother.

First, its content. When a society finds it normal and acceptable for a woman with 40 grandchildren to blow herself up in a suicide attack (which failed to kill anyone but herself) you know that you are not dealing with a society that can be spoken of in the same moral terms as my own. It is almost laughable to hear the phrase "doing such and such to the Palestinians is wrong". Bad implies the kind of moral judgement that is made about a society similar to our own with similar values such that there is some way to say that what would be bad to do to someone in our society is wrong to do to someone in theirs. This can only be true if there is something about the respective communities that is shared. It is hard to imagine what a community that thinks this is normal has in common with those of us who make western-style moral judgements.

What kind of society can cheer on an old lady who blows herself up?

Secondly, it is now clear that grandmothers are no longer innocent by-standers by default. It used to be assumed that at the very least old ladies were not to be treated as suspicious because who would send an old lady out with a suicide vest? But now we see another Western assumption fade to oblivion. Israel now has to treat even old ladies as suspects.

I suspect that it will be a long time before Israel forgives the Palestinians for making them mistreat old women. Forcing Israeli soldiers to now look at old granmothers as terrorists is inhumane. Hamas is now one step closer to making Israelis have to fight like Hamas does - with no regard for anything, with no modicum of respect for humans, or human dignity. When all is said and done, Israel will have to become a crueller people, and it is incidents like this that are to blame.

Finally, and this is pretty worrying, the picture clearly shows the grandmother/terrorist holding an M-16 that says "IDF" on it in Hebrew (or at least the DF part is visible). This means that the weapon is from the Israeli military. It should be very worrying that Hamas has gotten hold of weapons from the Israeli Army.

The Arabs have been stealing weapons from the Israeli Army for a LONG time. It's quite embarassing. There is a flourishing economy in stolen goods from Israel throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Some years ago, Yasser Arafat and Jibril Rajoub (Arafat's "Defense Minister", I think) were found to have been driving cars stolen from people in places like Netanya.

Also, Israeli drug traffickers have been known to exchange drugs for guns/explosives with Arabs. It's just disgusting.

As for using old women as suicide bombers, part of it is teh profiling of terrorists has usualy been men under 40. When the Army successfully blocked young men the Arabs started using young women. Now I guess teh Army is also targeting young women (and maybe fewer young women with young children are willing), so they use old women who can more easily get through Israeli checkpoints AND don't have small children to take care of. She may even be a widow so that she has no husband to take care of or veto her actions. And of course, her parents are also not likely to be around to veto her actions either.

It's interesting how they have not gotten old men to be suicide bombers, though.

I don't know why people are surprised about this "grandma" suicide bomber. The media usually makes more of a female suicide bomber than a male. As women are supposed to have that nurturing life giving/preserving gene. This should not surprise anyone. One must recognize that the "prima facie" suicide bombers (males in their late teens - late 30's) need to learn how to hate and fight from somewhere. They learn about this culture of death from the home. It's the mothers and grandmothers who are responsible for nuturing their children with hate and violence. Its the mothers and grandmothers who teach their children between right and wrong. It's the mothers and grandmothers who have a choice between giving thier child an Elmo doll or a grenade. Schools are for reading, writing and arithmatic. Character, values and morals must come from the home.

They live in a society of death so this is normal for them. We don't, we find this repulsive. Ours is a society that reveres life; theirs is a society that reveres death. It should not be shocking in a society where the suicide bomber jacket is the latest style, that a grandmother of 40 picks up the latest trend, as she herself is the one that set the trend. She is just seeking death like everyone else in her culture. There is no difference between the 18 year old boy and the the 67 year old grandma. Just because someone is older doesn't mean they have washed away they hate and intolerance of thier youth.

Israel is going to feel the backlash of this when they start imposing harsher screening methods on the elderly. I dont think Israel cares too much about this. Has anyone been to a US airport lately? The way they screen some of the elderly here is unconscionable. It should shock no one that one who breeds hatred, violence and murder of innocents, would in time become a murderer herself.